Personal care products, particularly cleansing products, have traditionally been marketed in a variety of forms such as bar soaps, creams, liquid soaps, lotions, and gels. Typically, these cleansing products have attempted to satisfy a number of criteria to be acceptable to consumers. These criteria include cleansing effectiveness, skin feel, mildness to skin, hair, and ocular mucosae, and lather volume. Ideal personal cleansers should gently cleanse the skin or hair, cause little or no irritation, and should not leave the skin or hair with a heavy buildup or overly dry when used frequently.
It is desirable for a planar cleansing article to have rigidity and thickness within a certain range depending on the size of the article. Hand-held articles haven fallen into three categories. A first is articles that have the size of a pad which fits within the palm of a hand. An article in this category, such as a bar of soap and a sanding block must be rigid enough to be pushed (i.e., sideways compression vector) without buckling, and yet compliant enough to follow contours of the underlying plane. A second is grip sized articles, such many existing body sheets for example disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,428,799, 6,217,889 and 6,267,975, which are used by gripping a side and pulling (i.e., sideways tension vector). An article in this category must have sufficient rigidity to remain flat during use. A third is sheet sized articles, such as existing washcloths and paper towels. An article in this category must have a low enough rigidity so that they become entwined among the gripping members of the hand (i.e., fingers) during use.
A problem exists with the prior art lathering, cleansing articles in that they are insufficiently rigid to efficiently cleanse the body or other surface without buckling, dragging, crumpling or rolling up or they are so rigid they do not follow contours of the skin or surface being cleansed, they do not retain their shape, and so are ineffective at cleaning. Some articles which are too rigid can be perceived as scratchy or damaging to the skin, and these overly rigid articles do not lather well because their rigidity reduces the ability of successive compression-decompression cycles to pump lather through the article. These articles are unable to cleanse and exfoliate at optimal levels for the user.
It is further desirable for cleansing articles that are personal care articles to be non-scratchy. Articles comprising thermoplastic materials, which are rigid can have a scratchy feel during use, particularly at edges, protrusions and bond points. High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) sheets, for example, at a thickness of only 0.010 inches (0.25 mm), feel scratchy at the edges when articles containing said sheets are rubbed against the skin.
It is also highly desirable to deliver cleansing benefits from a disposable product. Disposable products are convenient because they obviate the need to carry or store cumbersome bottles, bars, jars, tubes, and other forms of clutter including cleansing products and other products capable of providing therapeutic or aesthetic benefits. Disposable products are also a more sanitary alternative to the use of a sponge, washcloth, or other cleansing implement intended for extensive reuse, because such implements can develop bacterial growth, unpleasant odors, and other undesirable characteristics related to repeated use.
Thus, a need exists for an article of varying sizes that have increased handleability. These articles would need a cleansing composition associated with an article that is disposable having a non-scouring substrate with various textures, increased thickness and rigidity. These properties enhance lathering which in turn increases cleansing and exfoliation, and optimizes delivery and deposition of a therapeutic or aesthetic benefit agent, which might be contained within the article.